Instant view: Bank of America quarterly earnings drop

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp posted a 37.5 percent drop in first quarter earnings, hurt by mortgage-related costs.

COMMENTARY

HEINO RULAND, ANALYST, RULAND RESEARCH, FRANKFURT

"The figures are clearly disappointing and missed the market expectations. It is clear that a number of factors played a role and influenced the different earnings levels. Pressure on the mortgage business had a significant impact for example. This in itself, however, doesn't really come as a huge surprise to me, but the market seems to have been more optimistic and may be disappointed."

STEFAN DE SCHUTTER, TRADER, ALPHA TRADING, FRANKFURT

"The EPS is worse than expected and this is really surprising considering the satisfying JP Morgan figures earlier this week. These figures could weigh on the market but many investors may still be waiting to see how others like Goldman and Morgan Stanley do before taking direction and making a solid judgment on the sector. I don't think that this is one of the most indicative groups in the sector."

DAVID MORRISON, MARKET STRATEGIST, GFT GLOBAL MARKETS, LONDON

"The first thing is of course the earnings per share which is a big miss. I think the reason seems to be Bank of America is struggling with the mortgage mess and cleaning up what is going on there. This is an ongoing situation. We are seeing investors are marking its shares down ... If we are really seeing a slowdown in the U.S. economy, which we certainly seem to be with GDP estimates getting revised down and rising input costs across the board going to affect corporations and consumers already been hit, we might see a dip down in consumer demand. Going forward, I think Bank of America is going to struggle and it can't rely on consumer going forward. It has got a lot to unscramble with the mortgage mess and foreclosures."

(Reporting by Dominic Lau in London and Josie Cox in Frankfurt, compiled by Tiffany Wu in New York)